90 Is A Really BIG Number
Beloved and Reviled;
he is one of history's most famous men.
Today is Saturday, August 13th, 2016. It's Fidel Castro's 90th birthday. He holds a few records. Against all odds, he overthrew a U.S.-backed dictatorship and, again against all odds, made it stand for his lifetime. And, oh yes, the Guinness Book of World Records also says that Fidel Castro has survived by far the most assassination attempts in world history. Impressive indeed.
Reading about a U. S. assassination attempt.
Cuban exiles and the Mafia were #2 and #3.
Front page Escambray newspaper Aug. 11-2016.
Fidel Castro, the young leader of Cuba.
Fidel Castro, as he approached 90.
He almost didn't make it, many times!
In his 70s Fidel still worked too hard. He fainted during a long outdoor speech and, above, this fall after a speech badly broke bones in his left knee.
The above photo of Fidel Castro was taken late on the afternoon of July 26, 2006, in Holquin, Cuba, when he was just 17 days shy of his 80th birthday. This 40-minute speech had been preceded by a two-hour speech in nearby Bayamo on Cuba's eastern end. Within minutes after this photo was taken, Fidel Castro was rushed to a hospital where he barely survived a seven-hour emergency operation for an intestinal disorder. But he has tenaciously hung on to the tenuous threads of life for another decade and, perhaps, will even last a few more years.
Above is the first photo taken of Fidel Castro. At six months of age in January of 1927, he was already a physical specimen who would go on to become Cuba's Athlete of the Year as well as, among other things, the only person in the world to overthrow a U. S./Mafia-supported dictatorship in his small native country. Moreover, against overwhelming odds, he would tenaciously defend his revolution for over half a century. Thus, the eight decades between the 1927 baby photo above and the 2006 Bayamo photo constitutes a saga unmatched in history.
Lina Ruz and Angel Castro, Fidel's parents.
Angel Castro owned 36,000 acres of land surrounding the town of Biran in southeastern Cuba. Angel had his own train to transport his produce to markets and, on Sundays, to take his children, his "hijos," for fun rides around his vast property.
Angel Castro was born on December 5, 1875, in Lancara, Spain. He died on October 21, 1956, when two of his three sons -- Fidel and Raul -- were in Mexico preparing to return to Cuba for the purpose of overthrowing the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. Fidel was never close to his father and he resented the fact that a part of Angel's fortune was based on contracts he had with the imperialist Boston-based United Fruit Company.
As his father became a millionaire, Fidel mostly identified with his mother Lina, shown above tending to her herd of goats.
Lina was actually Angel's peasant maid when they began building their family. Fidel mortally loved his mother and it was a trait he would shower on poor (as well as rich) women all his life. The above photo is quite historic and illustrates an incident described by Fidel's seminal biographer Georgie Anne Geyer and other historians. In 1959, shortly after the overthrow of Batista, Fidel issued a written order calling for many acres of farmland to be flooded to provide irrigation for peasant farms. The land to be flooded included Lina's home. Fidel sent his oldest brother Ramon to try to convince Lina to move to an apartment in the big city of Santiago de Cuba. Lina was so incensed she got her .22-caliber rifle [above] and chased him off her property. But a stubborn Fidel didn't relent...till Lina sagaciously told Ramon to tell Celia Sanchez to come see her. Lina knew Celia could over-rule Fidel.
So, Celia Sanchez got in her beloved Metari jeep and drove alone from Havana to Biran to meet with the outraged Lina.
Lina knew Celia Sanchez, history's greatest revolutionary heroine, was the only person who could and often did "over-rule" Fidel, to quote Geyer. After listening to Lina, Celia returned to Havana and simply tore up Fidel's decree concerning his irrigation plans. The mother-son conflict was over, never to be mentioned again, except by the historians including Ms. Geyer.
So the young Fidel had his formative early years dominated by his loving mother Lina. This set a pattern that would extend to the rest of his life when women, but never men, would be allowed to influence and sometimes dominate his life. By the time the above photo was taken in 1931, it was also known that Fidel had an off-the-charts IQ as well as a documented photographic memory.
Thus it was his intellect and curiosity, not his physical prowess or his cuteness, that first shined spotlights on Fidel.
As he entered his teens, Fidel's prime interest was girls, such as an early heartthrob shown above in the white dress.
Fidel, with the sucker, was always a leader as a student.
The 12-year-old Fidel Castro mailed the above letter to U. S. President Franklin Roosevelt asking for a "ten dollar bill green" because he had "not seen" one before. He reminded the President he didn't know much "English" but he did know "very much Spanish." Note that he left his address and graciously said, "Thank you very much. Good by. Your Friend Fidel Castro." Then he reminded the President that he could show him in Cuba where to get plenty of "iron to make your ships." In other words, the young Fidel was fond of and enthralled with the United States, but that would change. Fidel got a return letter from the White House, but not a green $10 bill. This letter is in the U. S. Archives. You can study his young handwriting and curiosity.
In addition to five sisters, Fidel had an older brother, Ramon, and a younger brother, Raul. At age 85, Raul is now the President of Cuba. Ramon died at age 91 in Havana on February 23, 2016.
As a basketball, track, and baseball superstar, Fidel emerged as Cuba's National Athlete of the Year. He was once scouted as a pitching prospect by the Washington Senators and the Philadelphia Athletics, but chose law school and revolution.
By the time he graduated from Belen College High School in 1945, the strikingly handsome Fidel Castro was already well known in eastern Cuba for his academic prowess and across the island for his athletic skills before he became world-famous.
Physically and intellectually gifted, Fidel entered the University of Havana. He brought with him a dream of Major League baseball in the U. S. but, beyond that, his long-range plan was to get his law degree and then return to Cuba's second largest city, Santiago de Cuba, and open a law office that would mostly be devoted to serving the area's peasant women, free of charge. Making or accumulating money was never one of his goals, and that unusual characteristic would stay with him for the rest of his very long life, although his powerful enemies in the U. S. have always distorted such aspects of his personality.
Fidel arriving in Havana on January 8th, 1959 as the leader of Cuba. He was flanked on his right by Camilo Cienfuegos, who died later that year in an airplane crash, and on his left by Huber Matos.
In April of 1961, Fidel raced to the front-lines to lead the defense of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. History registers the fact that the CIA had assured President Kennedy that Fidel would "race to his getaway airplane" the moment he heard the U. S. bombers that initiated the attack while disguised as Cuban warplanes. Unlike his prime enemies, it's known that Fidel has never had "getaway" planes or boats.
Fidel's three formidable enemies during and after the revolution were the Batistianos, the Mafia and the United States. The photo above was taken just after daylight on January 1, 1959 when Cubans in Havana were already destroying hated remnants, such as this casino, of the ousted Batista dictatorship.
A guerrilla fighter pausing to read a newspaper.
Fidel, a guerrilla hero in New York City in April of 1959.
Fidel is shown above outlining a battle plan to his fellow rebels.
Fidel standing and Raul kneeling before a battle in 1958.
This photo depicts the last of the revolution's Big Three. The man on the left applauding the Castro brothers is the still spy 85-year-old Jose Ramon Machado Ventura. This photo was taken April 19, 2016.
It has been said, although certainly not by his enemies, that Fidel's success "gave birth to democracy in the Caribbean and Latin America." After Fidel's triumph, U.S.-friendly dictators such as Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, Somoza in Nicaragua, etc., etc. still reigned supreme but Fidel's break-through spurred rebels and Castro idolaters, such as Danny Ortega above, to fight U.S.-backed dictators.
After his rebels ousted the U.S.-friendly Somoza family in Nicaragua, Danny Ortega has been among a plethora of democratically elected Latin American Presidents regularly paying homage to Fidel Castro.
At the Moncada trial in 1953 Fidel was sentenced to 15 years in prison. He defended himself, famously closing with the above quotation: "Condemn me. That's not important. History will absolve me."
Many historians and some U. S. politicians have said that Fidel has "out-smarted" eleven U. S. presidential administrations. The above quotation by Fidel was made in 1973 when he predicted the U. S. would talk to Cuba when the U. S. had its first black President and the world had its first Latin American Pope. Mr. Obama is black and Pope Francis is from Argentina. Fidel lived long enough to see those historic firsts and indeed President Obama and Pope Francis both arrived in Cuba to actually "talk."
Despite security concerns, he often mingled with Cuban crowds.
As he aged, outdoor speeches under the tropical sun severely taxed his endurance, as above on a scorching day. In his younger years, he famously made 6-hour, unscripted speeches in outdoor venues.
At an assembly session, Fidel's deteriorating health concerned Raul.
On November 2, 1962, America's top magazine -- Life -- focused its huge spotlight on Fidel Castro's little Cuba. That was a few days after the 8 days in October of 1962 when the Cuban Missile Crisis took the world the closest it has ever been to a nuclear holocaust. History has blamed Fidel Castro most of all but, as with many other historic events in his life, there was a lot of blame to go around. For example, in 1952 the U. S. teamed with the Mafia to support the vile Batista dictatorship in Cuba. That gave birth to Fidel Castro's revolution and his resultant fame. The U. S. then compounded that undemocratic mistake by supporting the ousted Batistianos-Mafiosi from 1959 till today, controlling the narrative to shift all the blame to Fidel while much of it should be on the shoulders or gravestones of right-wing U. S. decision-makers as well as the extremist Batistiano-Mafiosi benefactors. By the same token, it would also be accurate to say that Fidel Castro's gigantic role in history says much more about the United States than it says about one man on a little island, albeit the biggest and most renowned island in the Caribbean.
To this very day Fidel considers his soulmate, Celia Sanchez, the most important figure in the Cuban Revolution for her incomparable exploits as a guerrilla fighter, recruiter of rebels and supplies, and as a decision-maker that could and did over-rule him both during and after the revolution. She died of cancer on January 11, 1980, but not before telling her friend Dalia Soto del Valle to "take good care of him."
He has been married since 1980 to Dalia, and they have 5 devoted sons.
Forever a revolutionary legend.
Fidel Castro
August 13, 1926 -- _________?
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